In Bed with Beauty Read Online Free PDF

and she watched him go. Not sure if she’d had a near miss with something fatal or something too wonderful to live without.

    Harris had never had luck with women. His mother had abandoned him when he was three. His father’s two subsequent wives had quickly left as well. The longest relationship he’d had with a woman had lasted three weeks and by the end of that time he’d realized the truth for him about women. He was meant to live alone as a confirmed bachelor—non-family man. But deep inside he was tired of the silence.
    Discovering that Sarah’s brother had left and Ray had promised to give her a ride home shouldn’t have come as a surprise to Harris. It seemed that if he kissed a woman and then made up his mind to do the noble thing, fate would of course intervene. All he wanted to do was to get as far away from Sarah as possible and to recover some of the control that he’d always taken for granted. Instead he found himself ensconced in the back of a dark limo with her.
    Sarah stared out the window. It was the first time since they’d met that she had nothing to say. He searched his mind but small talk wasn’t his forte.
    “I’ve finally discovered a way to make you quiet.”
    “Happy?” she asked.
    Since he was accustomed to silence, he should have been, but he wasn’t. There was something sacrilegious about a hushed Sarah. He thought he might have hurt her and he regretted that because he’d never intended to make her feel bad about herself or anything that went on between them. But saying that out loud wasn’t something he was comfortable with. “No.”
    She looked at him then and he wished she hadn’t. Her eyes were wide and bruised. He knew the blame for that look lay squarely on his shoulders.
    She’d taken the same seat in the limousine as she had the first time they’d met. Her skirt had pulled tight over her hips when she’d entered the car and he’d watched her with hungry eyes. Despite the intimacy they’d shared she was still a mystery to him.
    “I don’t know what you want from me, Harris,” she said. He liked the way his name sounded when she said it. Wished that her voice didn’t sound so husky though. This is why he should never have let Ray convince him to visit Taste of Home. He knew better. He’d spent thirty-five years learning that when it came to women he didn’t have an M.B.A.
    Damn. He didn’t want to be having this conversation, though he felt compelled to be honest with her. Not that he’d planned to lie to her previously. “I don’t know what I want from you either.”
    “That doesn’t sound like you.”
    “How do you know?” he asked. They’d just met. They were still essentially strangers. No, that wasn’t right. He knew her better than some of the woman he’d slept with. He knew she talked a lot except when she was nervous. He knew she nibbled her lower lip when she was unsure. He knew the sounds she made when he kissed her.
    No, they weren’t strangers.
    “Your character is stamped on every move you make,” she said at last.
    He arched one eyebrow at her. How did a man respond to something like that? He hoped she really didn’t know him as well as she’d just intimated because if she did, he was already in trouble. But then trouble and Sarah seemed to go hand in hand.
    She moved next to him on the seat. She smelled faintly of Spring—flowers and rain and all the things of rebirth. Never had he felt more like Hades—alone and cold in his damp, dark underworld.
    “I’m willing to meet you halfway,” she said, placing her hand on his knee.
    Her eyes sparkled with hope, he thought. Damn, he knew then that he should break it off. Take her hand off his leg and place it back on the seat between them.
    But instincts older than common sense were in charge now. He as still partially aroused from holding her earlier and he hardened. If he moved her hand anywhere it would be a few inches higher, he’d be in heaven. “Halfway to what?”
    “This